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I agree Asheville is developing fast. With what urbancharlotte said, there are tons of roads comparable to Charlotte and I think Asheville is the size of Gastonia. Gastonia is no where near Asheville's level. I think Asheville has the potential to develop into the next big thing in NC, surpassing Fayetteville, if it hasn't already.
Asheville needs more than tourism to support that. Tourism creates a huge part of the jobs here, but it doesn't pay squat.
This discussion became inflamed, when race became the prime subject. How do you expect someone to react when their family and friends work their tail off to get the most out of life, and someone from the opposite race lumps them in with a bunch of criminals. I get exactly the point Urbanplanet was trying to make, too bad too many people are unable to empathize the socio-economic problems of people who have just begun to attain human rights in this country... Pat McCrory dug his own hole.
You know - your obvious attempts to take this discussion in a direction it was never intended - and to keep inflaming things w/ absurd comments such as "people are unable to emphathize w/ the socio-economic problems of people who have just begun to attain human rights in this country" - are past pathetic. I guess you are still looking for your 40 acres and a mule, and the rest of us have joined the 21st Century (or had you not noticed? We have a black President - and you are living in the New South).
Anyone who is paying taxes and is a hard-working person is concerned about 1. how his/her tax dollars are being spent and 2. crime in their own neighborhoods. Those are universal issues that every citizen, regardless of race, is interested in.
Asheville needs more than tourism to support that. Tourism creates a huge part of the jobs here, but it doesn't pay squat.
I have been concerned with how developers have been able to come into Buncombe (and surrounding) counties and literally rape the countryside, pollute natural streams, top mountains and strain infrastructure. Yes, it increases tax revenue to allow building, but someone is not watching out for the environment . . . pretty sad.
You know - your obvious attempts to take this discussion in a direction it was never intended - and to keep inflaming things w/ absurd comments such as "people are unable to emphathize w/ the socio-economic problems of people who have just begun to attain human rights in this country" - are past pathetic. I guess you are still looking for your 40 acres and a mule, and the rest of us have joined the 21st Century (or had you not noticed? We have a black President - and you are living in the New South).
Anyone who is paying taxes and is a hard-working person is concerned about 1. how his/her tax dollars are being spent and 2. crime in their own neighborhoods. Those are universal issues that every citizen, regardless of race, is interested in.
You know - your obvious attempts to take this discussion in a direction it was never intended - and to keep inflaming things w/ absurd comments such as "people are unable to emphathize w/ the socio-economic problems of people who have just begun to attain human rights in this country" - are past pathetic. I guess you are still looking for your 40 acres and a mule, and the rest of us have joined the 21st Century (or had you not noticed? We have a black President - and you are living in the New South).
Anyone who is paying taxes and is a hard-working person is concerned about 1. how his/her tax dollars are being spent and 2. crime in their own neighborhoods. Those are universal issues that every citizen, regardless of race, is interested in.
Ani, I suggest we just ignore this trollish behavior where he continues to try to twist your words - carry on, you're doing just fine
I have been concerned with how developers have been able to come into Buncombe (and surrounding) counties and literally rape the countryside, pollute natural streams, top mountains and strain infrastructure. Yes, it increases tax revenue to allow building, but someone is not watching out for the environment . . . pretty sad.
As someone who really LOVES the mountains , I too am very concerned about over development of them. Some of what has been allowed by local government in Asheville is just plain wrong.
Listen up. Your statement was blatantly incorrect. The socio-economic FACTS about this state are that more WHITE PEOPLE live in poverty in rural areas than BLACK PEOPLE who live in poverty in Charlotte. Poverty is NOT just an issue of RACE in this city. Poverty is an issue that affects all races in this state.
Last edited by brokensky; 12-26-2008 at 03:53 PM..
Location: Charlotte,NC, US, North America, Earth, Alpha Quadrant,Milky Way Galaxy
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Okay so I will say something after all
I'll say that what's been said by all the recent posters have been very accurate. Ani has made some good points, urban has also, both natives and both with a valid perspective on the way things were, are, and were they're headed. Usually the discussion goes off the tracks (and then over the cliff) because of over-sensitivity, which is valid. But what happens is that it then becomes a talking at each other as opposed to talking with each other.
If someone other than a black person says something about the state of young urban black boys (which is at a CRISIS state and has been for years) they get chastised for being insensitive and singling out one demographic and therefore the old racist trump card gets pulled out. However at the other end like metro said typically all black people get lumped into the same bucket, whether you're hard working, have intact family, pay your taxes, served your country, etc. It's a constant state of your guilty until proven innocent, and your left to operate under a perception that you need to demonstrate why you're an exception to a perceived norm. This is usually the source of the quick retort. The person asking a honest question then goes on the defensive, and then we talk at each other, a whole lot of energy gets expended and nothing really gets accomplished (except further justifying our mis-perceptions).
It's the 21st century and the issues today are NOT about race anymore. They are about what is right vs what is wrong. A classic point to this is right before Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated he was dealing with the issues of poor white disenfranchised Virgina coal miners. It was an issue of right vs wrong, however popular media and powers that be would love to have us at our throats so the good people don't coalesce and deal with the real issues. It's the old oki-doke (so why do we keep falling for it?).
I've actually erased a bunch of stuff I wrote after this but in essence, as I've said before and you can search my posts, the issues are right vs. wrong and no longer simply just race anymore.
ani - You've certainly created an interesting thread with this one!
I’ve read all of the comments and while the thread has drifted a bit, there is a constantly underlying theme of politics and money. It’s been said that “politics and money may be the root of all evil”. That statement seems to work equally well if reversed!
Charlotte does seem to be destined to be the ugly step-child of NC for some time to come. I’m one of those people who tend to vote in my own self-interest. I’m a notorious ticket-splitter and I voted for Pat McCrory because I believe that Charlotte does seem to get the “short end of the stick”. He seemed to me to represent a kind of moderate Republican, which nowadays, is an almost endangered species in the world of modern politics. I’m a news junkie of sorts, and caught several statements he made, that had the effect of dampening any enthusiasm the black community might have been able to muster for him. But by current political standards, his attempt to include the more conservative part of the Republican party would be par for the course. Thus. I can see urbancharlotte’s point of a major disconnect developing in the black community. That seems to be the nature of partisan politics! I believe that had he won, he might have governed in a more even-handed way than his political ads might have suggested. Bev Purdue’s election success does owe a lot to the “long coattails” of Barack Obama. But I’m sure the Raleigh crowd and the usual phalanx of eastern NC good ol’ boys were delighted with the outcome! Maybe she'll see the light in regards to roads, if she's stuck in that Suburban during rush hour on 77 on a Friday night!
Charlotte’s internal problems do affect its image of the ugly stepchild of the state. There is a big disconnect between the suburban areas and the inner city areas that is as stark as the difference between a first world country and a third world one. But they exist in Raleigh as well! I applaud urbancharlotte’s attainments in a world where it’s the exception rather than the rule. I think the vast majority of suburban Charlotte has really no idea of how daunting life can be for its poorer inhabitants and the roadblocks to any kind of success they face. It’s not quite as simple as lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps even with what many perceive to be social safety nets that were unheard of in our grandparents’ day. That safety net is replete with holes that many people fall through. It’s the “instant gratification society” we have morphed into, during the past 50 years that has created many of the problems we see in Charlotte and other large American cities. When you live in a neighborhood that produces drug dealers as the only successful role models in the area, it doesn’t appear to make very much sense to get that job at Macdonald’s for minimum wage, when you can make $500 a night selling drugs. That’s the ghetto model of capitalism at work! Education takes a big hit in poor areas too, when you can drop out of school and make enough money through drugs and robbery to get that Escalade. Staying in school, going to college and getting a good job seems as remote and nebulous to many inhabitants of ghetto areas as a trip to Mars! Girls, who get pregnant at the age of 14, end up keeping their babies as a kind of “toy and family” all wrapped into one. If a 14 year old girl wanted an abortion, the obstacles to get one are almost insurmountable. There’s no federal money for that and birth control info is not really a big priority of the school system. For those readers who find abortion to be an anathema, if they think all those kids born to these teen-age mothers will somehow get adopted, they are deluding themselves. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are not going to be swooping into the neighborhood anytime soon. Thus, the impoverished teen-age mother, sans father, with all of the social ills that are inherent with it, come full circle with another generation of poverty that produces those infamous “urban thugs”. This grates on the nerves of most middle-class people, but when you don’t have those “middle-class values” inculcated into you, at an early age, you’re not going to be inclined to use them as your “standard” in viewing the world. Education, as always, is the major key to changing this, but I'm not sure that the resolve exists in the right places to change anything!
I don't see what the big deal is about Pat calling out a race. It's fact?? Why cover that up?
Because blacks were not the only race out there causing trouble that night. Again, I was there.
McCrory wrote that ""too many of our youth, primarily African-American, are imitating and/or participating in a gangster type of dress, attitude, behavior and action." His statement was factual and reflects what you observed. Case closed.
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, I too am very concerned about over development of them. Some of what has been allowed by local government in Asheville is just plain wrong.
